I
find Orlan’s ideas about changing the “ways to think about one’s body and one’s
beauty” interesting, as through this work we find questioning what we ourselves
find beautiful. While doing so, she puts
forward ideas about how culture - be it paintings, photography, music,
cinema, etc – are able to so easily change who we are, whether we're aware of
it or not.
However, she obviously takes this to the extreme by physically &
permanently altering her appearance through surgery, or later on, through the
digital manipulation of her own face. While her message is valid, I don’t
believe this means of communicating it is at all necessary.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2009/jul/01/orlan-artist-interview
During an interview with the Guardian (shown in the link above), Orlan seems to place far too much emphasis on the fact that she was the first artist to venture into this sort of work, which makes me wonder whether she just disguises an incredibley extrovert publicity stunt as art; just a way of spreading her name around, and provoke discussion of her work purely due to it’s controversy.
During an interview with the Guardian (shown in the link above), Orlan seems to place far too much emphasis on the fact that she was the first artist to venture into this sort of work, which makes me wonder whether she just disguises an incredibley extrovert publicity stunt as art; just a way of spreading her name around, and provoke discussion of her work purely due to it’s controversy.
Personally, I believe that this
work’s intended message is over-looked purely because it is so shocking. Does
it need to be this extreme? Would viewers have a clearer understanding of the
work’s message if they weren’t simply blinded by how shocking (& sometimes
disturbing) Orlan’s artworks are?
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